Amber Doll

Seeta slept next to me, nuzzled modestly and fit perfectly against my arm, my side, my hands as I shifted through the night. A skinny girl, I didn't think she was older than 15, and her family calls her guriya, which means "doll" in Hindi. Her manner was so simple and curious, her eyes a dark shade of hazel brown; she did seem a living doll at times. But other times, those eyes flipped from dark to light and back again in a blink, and not without subtle hesitation and prolonged flickers of unknown sadness, doubt, anger.

Before we went to sleep, she gleamed enormous pleasure from painting my hands, and wrists in mehti (henna) and my cooing English, "Beauuutiful. Its so beautiful." Her responding smile held measures of grateful pride and joyful generosity. She looked at her hands, flipping them from front to back, then shifted her attention to mine, again smiling confidently.

The night before, she and I sat on the kitchen floor with Sarita, whose home it was, eating dinner and talking about women and marriage. I told them how frustrated I was at how it seemed a habit of some Indian men to completely ignore what I said.

"I like you very much," Seeta had said, after I had spent a good several minutes blowing off some steam about it. She nodded at my anger with understanding and relief.

It wasn't until the morning after sleeping next to her that I wondered about her age. Her brother who seemed old enough to be her mother, mentioned in passing as we sat on the kitchen floor waiting for breakfast, that he couldn't make travel plans because of family responsibilities.

"Like what?" I asked, having left the States for India while my Dad had back surgery and turned 60 and my sister graduated from college.
"Seeta has to be married," he said as she stood just beside us, her thin, gangly body lightly hovered over a pan of potato and oil. She turned to us, frowning.
"Hmmm?" her tone rising at the end in a bit of fiery apprehension and adolescent denial.
"What?" I said, becoming monosalabic at the thought of this seemingly very young girl being married off in the middle of her schooling. It happens more often than not in India, but this was my Seeta. I looked to her for confirmation, but she just swayed over the pan uneasily.
"Husband? But how old is she?" When I had repeated the question 4 or 5 times, which was the required number to get a response to any question in this family, her brother finally responded, "22."

My eyes shot over to her slender frame, almost invisible under her colorful cotton kurti and pajama pants, and her simple, long ponytail tied at the nape of her neck. When she turned, she still said nothing, but looked as though she smelled something foul and bobbled her head a bit.

Sarita yelled loud and harsh at one of the boys outside the kitchen in Marwati. Sarita was 30 years old with 2 sons, 13 and 11, had married at 19, and housed 3 to 5 other children (depending on the night) in two small rooms and two beds. In addition, another small family with a baby--Sarita's brother and his wife and child--as well as her own husband and at times Seeta's grown brother would also stay at the house, filling it with 10. Sarita ran the women's empowerment program at an NGO outside Jaipur, kept the house clean, studied to finish high school, worshiped Pavarati fevorishly morning and night, and, while I stayed with her, fasted, consuming only chai and water, for yet another Indian festival lasting 9 days. Staying with her, I made the 11th person in her home that night after being locked out of my guest house, and was welcomed with open arms, as is Indian custom. I thought of her because she seemed a real women, ready and armed for the requirements of marriage and family, and I couldn't help but compare her strength to Seeta's simple, delicate nature. I wondered if Sarita would be the woman she is without all the weight she bore and I wondered if marriage would make Seeta stronger or make as little sense in practice as it made in theory.

A woman completely outside the context but between them both in age, I compared my experience to theirs. Flitting around a foreign country with no ties and no pressure except to support myself, often feeling lost or lonely or without direction, I have the luxury to wonder if what I miss is a sense of duty and responsibility. In India, there seem to be a plethora of holes to fill (as well as riches to be had) which could potentially be filled by work from my own hands, but it doesn't seem to make much difference as I am still exiled to the edge of the wild, bursting, and unfamiliar party and war that is India. The attendees begin from a context I have no map to find and not enough experience to trust.

Before leaving their house for the last time to continue my travels, I gave Seeta a tight, American hug in the privacy of one of the two bedrooms in the middle of the hot day, when most of the family was at work or studying. Her sweet heart unexpectedly welled in her eyes and, when pressed, she finally said, "I'm sorry that you go." I felt compassion for her sentiment and melted at her vulnerability and love, but my heart had already left and sitting there with her in tears almost felt silly, as I had hardly felt truly there to being with. Not until a few days later did I feel understanding through and through for her sadness. And more than anyone else, Seeta taught me more than anyone I've met in India so far without saying a word. She gave me her heart in its most untainted form, untouched by romantic love, hard labor, or trajedy. I remembered myself in that state and somehow, it seemed newly accessable and a starting place for something new.